We recently connected with Jan Canty and have shared our conversation below.

Jan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I was in the 10th year of training to become a psychologist; within two weeks of finishing my post-doctoral fellowship. My long-range goals were within reach and I could start to exhale. I could actually picture myself launching my own private practice.

But that all evaporated the stormy evening of Saturday, July 13, 1985. Lightning periodically bleached the sky to a sickly jaundice. Despite the hour, it was still a dogged 84 degrees outside. Darkness descended sooner than normal on this abnormal day. The streetlights seemed to flicker a subtle “S.O.S.”

So, when my husband of nearly 11 years missed dinner, I reassured myself it was just poor driving conditions. After all, flooded freeways were not unusual, not in Wayne County, Michigan. But, after a couple more hours I yielded to a sense of foreboding. I switched the yard lights on to beckon Al’s arrival. In retrospect, perhaps it was to calm my own escalating anxiety.

Hours of waiting spanned more than a week.

On day ten, I sat across from Inspector Gil Hill of the Detroit Homicide Division at 7:00 a.m. He matter-of-factly announced, “We located your husband in a shallow grave in a bog up in Petosky and flew back last night. We need you at the Wayne County Morgue. Detective Landeros will accompany you.”

I struggled to comprehend. A tambourine pounded inside my chest cavity. My awareness narrowed to a pinpoint on the old tile floor. The voices that I could make out all seemed to originate from the long hallway; even from the people standing near to me. I couldn’t make sense of their words. Nor did I try.

Life had been yanked off course. More horrific news followed.

Detective Landeros quietly ushered me to the old, triangular Wayne County Morgue a few blocks away. She prepped me for what lay ahead. She softly explained the identification procedure. And then she uttered words which became seared in my memory. “Your husband was bludgeoned to death on Casper Street. He was then driven north to Petosky in the trunk of his own car and concealed in three different parcels. He’s been submerged in a bog owned by the University of Michigan Biologic Station since the night he went missing.”

I abruptly felt… “offline.”

Curbside at the morgue I balked at stepping out of her patrol car. She walked around to my door and extended her graceful hand. “This will help you realize he’s not coming home. It won’t take long. You won’t be alone. You can do this.”

I wasn’t so sure.

Moments later we passed through the ugly aluminum retrofitted front doors. They really belonged on a rundown convenience store, not on a structure of monumental importance. Normalcy was left outside. So was hope.

The odor inside the beige limestone corridor was an unfamiliar mix of Pine-Sol and used kitty litter. A large marble staircase was to our right. I then recalled a newspaper article from years back. It explained that this place had a display case upstairs. It exhibited odd implements of death collected over the years from suicides and homicides. This building wasn’t disturbing enough?

We walked a mere 50 feet to a self-contained, tiled chamber with dull fluorescent lighting. As we entered, I wondered how many mothers, spouses and adult children had endured this drill. Detroit had the vile distinction of being the murder capital of the nation. So, it came as a surprise that no one was around.

All Detective Landeros requested was one simple word: “yes” or “no.” My feet protested going further as we reached the worn threshold. I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to know.

The steady voice of Detective Landeros continued. “Take your time. Whenever you’re ready.”

How can a wife – any wife – ever be ready to gaze upon her disfigured, disjointed husband? I gingerly and reluctantly stepped inside the arcane vault and lifted my eyes.

The three-letter word became lodged in my throat. I felt faint. The procedure had to be repeated. After a deep breath, I summoned all my strength, glanced at the table before me and blurted the word “Yes.” Suddenly it was over.

As Detective Landeros ushered me toward the exit she spotted the press gathered outside on the sidewalk. They’d assembled like fruit flies over Sangria. Their large cameras were perched atop sturdy tripods that resembled machine guns to my mind. The reporters were poised to capture the moment for the public’s consumption.

Why do news consumers clamor to see remnants of violence? Why?!

Once home I asked myself “What now?”

No family lived within 900 miles. I knew no one who’d been through this. The internet was not yet “a thing.” I didn’t have much of an income, having just finished my post-doctoral fellowship. I placed a call to my mentor hoping he’d know what to do. We agreed to meet.

This kind of madness is supposed to be limited to careless people on the wrong side of town, or felons engaged in illegal activities, right? It’s not supposed to find its way to suburbanites who’ve had their nose in a book, or couples who lived within their means and kept their lawn groomed.

I learned it can reach anyone at any time. We do NOT necessarily reap what we sow.

A funeral had to be planned. There were also meetings with detectives, undertakers, prosecuting attorney, and my physician, mentor and private attorney. I tried my best to sidestep the media and figure out how to sleep despite the nightmares. I’d been captured by this tsunami that I later learned always follows violent death.

And then there were the haunting questions. Was my husband’s murder linked with the hangup calls we’d been getting? What about the humid night three weeks earlier when someone followed me home while driving along Fox Creek Canal? Coincidence or overlooked warning? And just a week ago there were three dry cigarette butts under our kitchen window in a muddy area that adjoined our neighbors’ wide lawn. No pedestrian could have tossed them. They were recent since it had been raining for days.

This taught me another important lesson. There are things known and things unknown. What lies in the gap between them (often of our own making) is the veil of misperception.

As life unraveled, I promised myself something. I vowed that this calamity would not define me. Somehow, someway, something good must come from this. I didn’t know what. or how, or when. I only knew why. I viewed the “why of it” as a simmering wake-up call to action that would one day benefit others. I saw no alternative. It was one of the most important decisions I had ever made.

The media intrusion stubbornly persisted for months. I timidly and reluctantly thought about abandoning Detroit altogether. In the end, after weeks of soul-searching, our home was listed for sale. I began the process of job searching, terminating my budding psychology practice, packing, and preparing to leave everything and everyone I’d ever known to lead a heavily redacted life.

There are so many more victims than the ones taken to the morgue.

Was I running away or toward? Perhaps it was a bit of both.

Eventually, I settled into academic work in a sleepy little college town far off the beaten track under a cascade of mature maples. It was a community as different from Detroit, as sugar is to vinegar. This little hamlet had no airport, medical center, shopping mall, interstate, or professional sports team. What it did have was safety, trust and peace. I discovered I loved teaching. In the process, it began to reaffirm my resilience to me.

In that quiet, rural sanctuary I finally yielded to the grief of all I’d lost. I’d lost my husband, home, friends, sleep, my privacy, health, and my business. Tears were finally released in the privacy of my new bed. I had to consciously work at pulling down my guard. Hypervigilance had ruled my waking hours for nearly two years but was useless here, in this slow-paced, dusty crossroads town.

Nightmares slowly yielded to the soothing bedtime sounds of crickets and bullfrogs. I began to look forward to the fireflies at dusk and the sound of a rotating, rusty wind vane. Both reassured me life went on.

I did not speak of my husband’s death to another soul for 30 years. But when I did, when that time came, I felt absolutely catapulted to become a voice for other so-called homicide survivors.

In the ensuing three decades, in a time before the internet, grief therapy, victim advocates and cell phones, I knew it was up to me to rebuild my foundation. I had to find a way to repurpose my grief; to be the hammer and not the nail. And I did that through moving, completing marathons, writing, hosting a podcast “Domino Effect of Murder” and learning from other homicide survivors.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It’s been said that some important life lessons can only be learned in the midst of a storm. I believe this is so. Life prepared me professionally and personally to understand, bring awareness to, and expose the need for other homicide survivors. Most of us are quiet. Most of us don’t demand much. I crafted my message over 30 years of reflection and healing.

1)I’ve written two books: “A Life Divided” (a crime memoir)
“What Now? Navigating the Aftermath of Homicide & Suicide” (reference book)

2) I’ve written a chapter in an upcoming book – a compilation of trauma survivors who are reaching out to help others. It’s due out in January or so. It is entitled “Breaking the Silence.”

3) I recently started a blog on my website: www.jancantyphd.com It contains articles about how homicide survivors are exploited and what to do about it; group support; the overlooked issue of financial hardship following murder and one I’m about to post concerning so-called “murder zones” in the U.S. (etc)
4) In 2020 I launched a podcast for and about homicide survivors. It’s documentary in style and most of my guests are other homicide survivors but I’ve also interviewed two murderers, law enforcement, attorneys, a funeral director, and a crime journalist. December will mark the end of Season 4 and I’m already recording for Season 5. It is heard in 22 countries.

5) I’m been engaged in public speaking. Most of the time I have spoken to forensic investigators. Once I spoke with a national association of Biorecovery Specialists (crime scene cleanup businesses). I hope to speak with criminal justice faculty and CPA’s in the future because their work overlaps our needs.

6) At the encouragement of my daughter I started to post on TikTok. It’s been….interesting.

My formal training as a psychologist in combination with my “informal training” as a person impacted by grief is unusual.  Almost all mental health professionals who intervene with so-called “homicide survivors” have never been through it and most people impacted by violent death don’t have training as a psychologist.

I am active with the Innocence Project.  Yes, I want violent people caught and convicted and put behind bars. (The man who murdered my husband admitted to doing so on the witness stand.)  But I’d like to see greater accuracy in convictions – especially in capital cases.   There’s a woman in Texas by the name of Melissa Lucio, for example, who’s been on death row for years.  A professor from Cornell Law School has called the prosecution “by far the weakest capital case I’ve ever seen.”  More than two-thirds of the Texas Senate and a majority of the Texas House of Representatives pleaded for the parole board and governor to halt her execution.  The D.A. who prosecuted her case is now incarcerated for bribery and extortion.  I would urge readers to look up her situation on the internet.  There are others like her.  It’s uncommon for a crime victim to advocate for felons but I see them as people who were wronged.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

No one is immune from hardship. You can treat others well, dutifully prepare for your career, show gratitude and empathy, pay it forward, and pay your dues but that is NO guarantee of success. Life can (and occasionally does) rip the rug out from beneath you. It can happen via homicide but it can also happen through brushfires, earthquakes, stock crashes and illness. (I’m also a cancer survivor.)

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Professional mental health practitioners would benefit greatly from exposure to subcultures unfamiliar to their own. It would also help them see the limitations of Western models of intervention

This could be accomplished by Internships to culturally divergent communities within the U.S. (i.e. the Inuit, Hopi, military installations, rural Appalachia (etc.) or outside the U.S. borders.

Our models of intervention have limitations. It is why we cannot explain certain events like Near Death Experiences (i.e. Pam Reynolds in 1991) or Remote Viewing (i.e. Rosemary Smith who helped the US Air Force locate a crashed aircraft in Zaire/DR Congro in 1979) or the work of Dr. Christopher Kerr (who studied the dying process and found remarkable insights by people who were dying).

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jancantyphd.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/homicidesurvivor
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@jancantyphd?lang=en